The present invention relates to a method for removing roots from bulbous or cormatose plants, in particular, by means of mechanical work.
Heretofore, a farm work of root-removal or disrooting of cormatose plants has been realized, in general, by hand work of farm laborers by handling the plant body or placing it on a chopping board one by one and cutting off the roots using a knife etc.
Upon the remarkable progress in the biotechnology in recent years, an intense expectation has arisen for realizing an industrial agriculture which allows a considerable increase in the harvest amount while spending man-labor. For such industrial agriculture, mechanization of various farm works is necessary and, in addition, aseptic operations should, in most cases, be incorporated in order to eliminate infections during planting and cultivating on, such as, an agar culture medium which may probably be employed in such industrial agriculture.
In harvesting cormatose plants, such as, lily, fritillary and so on, removal of beard-like roots (disrooting) from the collected plant bodies is important. Hitherto, such disrroting has not been successfully mechanized and was performed exclusively by hand work of farm laborers spending extensive time at a low labor efficiency accompanied with considerable danger of unjury due to handling of a knife etc. Furthermore, there is a high probability of transference of phytopathogenic bacteria from the laborers' body to the plant, if a laborers' work has to be interposed in such mechanized works for disrooting, which has been a large obstacle to such mechanization.